Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
- Mortimer Adler's
- Syntopicon
Essays
War
& Peace:
Editor's
1-minute essay
War and peace are twin, even inseparable, ideas.
- War, commonly conceived, is the use of force or violence,
that most vile activity of men resorted to as a means of resolving conflicts or seeking
gain.
History is often viewed, and taught in schools, as an alternating punctuation of
war and peace.
But these common notions lack depth and insight into the true nature of war and
peace, a wisdom held by many of the great teachers:
- War exists, in a hostile world, even when, for the moment,
there is no shooting.
Plato, 25 centuries ago, understood this:
The world is foolish, he thinks, "in not understanding
that all men are always at war with one another ... For what men, in general,
term peace [is] only a name; in reality every city is in a natural state of war with every
other."
Hobbes, with many others, concurs:
"War consisteth not in battle only," he explains, "or in the act of
fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is
sufficiently known ... kings and persons of sovereign authority,
because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture
of gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another;
that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and
continual spies upon their neighbors; which is a posture of War."
This "tract of time" of which Hobbes speaks is
merely a time-out, a precarious and uneasy interval between hot shooting-wars. With this
in view, the 21 years between the first world war and the second was not peace at all; in
fact, these two conflicts might be more accurately seen as one grand conflagration!
- War, according to its classical definition, is both (1)
actual warfare, a shooting war; and (2) a "cold" war, an armed truce between
"hot" wars; a time of continued hostility with the threat of force never far
away.
Peace,
- real peace, the ancients contend, is more than a "cold
war" and something to be construed in positive, not negative, terms -- not
merely the absence of something else.
For example, the great Pax Romana had little true
peace in it. The iron fist of Rome, subjugating and smashing many peoples of Europe, Asia,
and Africa, created, along with its "peace," a deep-seated, foaming and seething
spirit of rebellion among the temporarily vanquished -- these would have their day once
again, and Rome would hemorrhage to death, a direct result of its "peace."
Peace, in its most splendiferous state, builds cities, not
of men, but of God. For men to be at peace with one another, Aquinas believes, each must
be at peace with himself, but "man's heart is not at peace, so long as he has not
what he wants, or if, having what he wants, there still remains something for him to
want." This, according to Aquinas, explains why Augustine defined peace in
terms of a time when all desires of each individual will be "set at rest
together."
Peace of this magnitude, we are certain, shall escape us in this life;
nevertheless, Adler presents to us, peace in a very substantial sense can be ours in the
here-and-now.
- Adler asks us to consider the fact that, while peace among
nations is, essentially, unknown to history, peace within nations is not so
uncommon.
There are many examples from history -- of tribes, cities, city-states, small
nations, and large nations -- which demonstrate that men and women can peacefully resolve
conflict without resorting to violence.
How is this peace brought about?
For example, in the United States, in the main, we enjoy civil peace.
Disagreements and conflicts arise, as they will among any people, but we have a long
tradition of settling disputes according to juridical procedure. And, where disputants
would choose not to avail themselves of the services of the courts, we have law
enforcement agencies that frown upon violence among citizens, even if they be willing
participants -- the gentlemen's duel was outlawed a long time ago.
In all of this we find that, along with rule of law and its machinery, the common
peace is maintained by competent and just government.
John Locke writes:
- "Civil society [is] a state of peace amongst those
who are of it, from whom the state of war is excluded by the umpirage which they have
provided in their legislative for the ending all differences that may rise
amongst any of them."
What we see in the world today are enclaves of such peace; in a sense, a
federation of nations devoted to this ideal of peace. And it works -- not perfectly, but
it works.
Anciently, these oases of such peace may have offered sanctuary to small numbers
of people -- Adler suggests 50,000 to 100,000. But, we witness in the flow of history,
despite the carnage of war among nations, a progressive march toward greater and
more peace within nations! Today, in our modern world, hundreds of millions enjoy
living under the relative security of the rule of law -- peace, in a very real sense.
But everything just stated here begs the question:
- Why can we not leverage all of these "local"
successes of peace into a super, worldwide peace?
Why indeed?
The central problem, essentially, relates not to rule of law but to the more basic
need for government -- world government -- to support such worldwide peace.
Clemenceau, French Prime Minister during World War I, lamented: "Men say they
want peace but they do not want the things that make for peace."
But, though this be true, maybe the price to be paid for world peace is too high
-- that price would be paid in terms of a surrender of considerable sovereignty of each
nation to the new world federal governing body.
Will we pay such a price?
And, should we pay it?
- Lord Acton's dictum regarding absolute power corrupting
absolutely must not be easily set aside -- who will protect us from this mega-government
when, as history warns, it inevitably becomes the latest tyrant to oppress humankind?
These are not simple questions to answer.
Some thinkers today, in view of the nuclear terror never very far from us, declare
that, whether we want it or not, world peace shall soon be at our door.
British historian, Arnold Toynbee, suggests that, in this regard,
- the only open question remaining before us is whether world
peace shall be forced upon us in some future conquest -- or gently settle upon us as a
creature of law and consent.
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